A friend recently posted a status on Facebook that I think most parents can relate to: "Jeff thinks he made a big mistake by letting Adelia have her first taste of candy today."

When we limit kids to healthy stuff like fruit and yogurt, it's easy to keep them off the junk—they don't know any better. But once they've gotten a taste of candy, chips, juice, and cupcakes, as they inevitably will, it's difficult keep pushing the celery sticks.

Fortunately, one very entrepeneurial Pikesville native (and mom) has created a line of healthy, all-natural snacks that my kids—and my wife and I—love. Noha Waibsnaider, who moved from Israel to Baltimore at age 10 and graduated from Pikesville High School, started Peeled Snacks after getting her MBA from Columbia and going to work for Unilever, maker of big-name brands like Ragu and Country Crock. "I was surprised at what was considered food," says Waibsnaider, who says she was shocked at the number of chemicals, preservatives, and other non-food ingredients that go into most brands on supermarket shelves. "People deserve real food."

Since founding Peeled Snacks in 2004, Waibsnaider has introduced several lines of snack packages including dried fruit, nuts, and, occasionally, dark chocolate. They range from single fruit and nut packages of everything from bananas ("Banan-a-peel") and mangoes ("Go-Mango-man-go") to Cherries ("Cherry-go-round") and Cashews ("Cashew Later"). Our favorites are the fruit and nut packages, like "Bing Bing Cherry" (peaches, apples, bing cherries, walnuts, and cashews) and, especially, "Shock-o-late" (pears, apricots, almonds, walnuts, and dark chocolate)—which is now being sold on all JetBlue flights!

All the snacks are 100% natural and organic, with no sugar, oil, or any preservatives added. I'm not the type who typically shops organic or looks for all-natural products, but I'm amazed how fresh and full of flavor these snacks are! The nuts even come in a small, separate package within the pouch to keep everything fresh. Frankly, genius.

Not surprisingly, the Peeled Snacks brand has become a huge hit since it's launch. Oprah Winfrey, Liv Tyler, Mariah Carey, and Rachel Ray have all sung the praises of the snacks and Good Housekeeping magazine listed among its "Healthiest After-School Snacks."As a result of all the good press and word of mouth, sales doubled in 2008. Waibsnaider, who became even more aware food additives, chemicals, and preservatives with the birth of her son, Oren, last year, says that even in the tough economy, her sales are growing as Peeled Snacks appears in more stores.

In Maryland and Washington DC, you can find Peeled Snacks at Balducci's, Nordstrom, Hudson News, Organic to Go, Marriott Gift Shops, Tranquil Space, Severna Park Convenience & Deli, Big Cheese, A Blooming Basket, and online at Amazon.com and PeeledSnacks.com.

As a special promotion for Learning to Crawl readers, use the code "PARENTING" to get Free Shipping (valid on UPS ground only at www.peeledsnacks.com. Can not be combined with other promotions. Expires 3/31/09).

I've just returned from the Baltimore Magazine mini-kitchen where I retrieved my second cup of coffee this afternoon (I've lost count of my total for the day). You know what the worst part of it is? I don't like coffee.

It's as if our boys, two-year-old Jack and two-month-old Ben, have conspired to keep us from getting anything resembling a decent night's sleep. My wife and I have taken to describing our nighttime sleep patterns the way veterans recall their years in combat zones.

"I got an hour or two in before Ben started shreiking his head off around ten," I might say. "I was hit with some incoming spit-up and poop and didn't get him down again until 2 a.m. I got another couple hours in before Jack approached from the right flank at 0500, looking for a glass of water."

Okay, that's a pretty extreme scenario, but sleep truly is a battle these days.

Our guru in the sleep department is Dr. Michel Cohen, our former pediatrician in New York and author of the excellent baby book The New Basics: A-to-Z Baby & Child Care for the Modern Parent. On the website for his practice, Tribeca Pediatrics, Dr. Cohen describes his philosophy as “less medicine is often the best medicine." More accurately, it could be described as "The baby's fine, you're fine, go home. Call me if anybody turns blue."

He specializes in sleep issues and, not surprisingly, he preaches a tough-love philosophy of sleep-training. When Jack was born, he recommended that, beginning at four months, we put him to bed at around 8 p.m., close the door and not open it again until 7 a.m., no matter what. When I spoke to him this week, he told me his advice had changed a little.

"I've become a little bit more hardcore, based on what I've been hearing from parents," he told me. "I now recommend that parents let the baby cry through the night beginning at two months. By three months, 95 percent of babies will have 10-12 hours on uninterrupted sleep a night."

The theory is that babies need to learn how to soothe themselves to sleep and the sooner they learn, the better for everyone. "We all wake up three or four times a night and soothe ourselves back to sleep," says Dr. Cohen. "When the baby is born, they wake up and look for comfort, but the need for closeness becomes a soothing habit."

He says that, contrary to conventional wisdom, babies do not need to eat every three hours and can learn to be content sleeping through the night, almost from birth. "I recommend parents wait until babies are two months old, not so much because the baby is finally ready, but because the parents are ready," he says, adding that parents should expect to hear their babies crying for about 40 minutes at a time, several times, for about three nights, before babies learn to soothe themselves. "At two months, parents are able to cope with the process."

The idea that babies are ready to sleep through the night from birth is backed up by our current pediatrician, Dr. Ralph Brown (who has made other delightful contributions to Learning to Craw). Dr. Brown says that while he doesn't recommend letting babies cry through the night from birth, he has several Orthodox Jewish clients who have so many children that, almost out of necessity, they sleep-train their babies from their first night home from the hospital. Their children are as happy and healthy as all the others he sees.

We tried sleep training Jack at four months. The crying periods lasted as long as an excruciating 90 minutes, and after three days, he still did not always sleep through the night. But after about two weeks of some good nights and some bad, Jack learned to soothe himself and sleep soundly through the night. He has been an excellent sleeper ever since and really never wakes up before morning (though "morning" to him sometimes means 5 a.m., usually between 6 and 7.)

We are just starting to think about sleep training Ben. One complicating factor is that Ben's room is right next to Jack's and we're worried that 90 minutes of crying will badly disrupt Jack's sleeping. This week, though, we let Ben cry himself to sleep after a late-night feeding. It took Ben about 10 minutes to soothe himself, but the crying—more like shreiking—did not seem to disturb Jack. When we're ready to let Ben soothe himself through the night, we figure we'll put a white-noise machine in Jack's room to drown it out. We also plan to let out neighbor know in advance, which is always a good idea. When we sleep-trained Jack we were in a small railroad apartment in Brooklyn, and it was if the building was in the process with us. We were sure to let everyone know in advance and, in retrospect, it might have been nice to drop off some little apology treat/gift to each apartment.

Despite Dr. Cohen's advice, we're going to wait until at least three months before sleep-training Ben. We're just not ready yet. For now, we're trying to get him down to one middle-of-the-night feeding a night, and letting him cry himself to sleep if he needs to after feedings (we used to hold/rock/bounce him until he was totally asleep). Tired though we may be, we know the end of this is near. Of course, we still won't be able to sleep past 7 a.m., even on weekends, but they go away to college at some point, right?

If you have advice or words of wisdom (or questions), please leave them in the comments on email me at sevan@baltimoremagazine.net

Yes, I'm aware that Elmo is just a swath of red fur that can't talk or give a proper interview. The endless hours spent watching Sesame Street's cutest monster haven't deluded me that much (yet). But the man who created Elmo and gives him life—making millions of children giddy in the process—can talk. His name is Kevin Clash (above, all spiffed up with his creation) and he's from Baltimore! He went to Dundalk High School, graduated from Towson University and got his start doing puppet shows at the Inner Harbor. Even better: He reads Learning to Crawl!

Evan Serpick: Thanks so much for agreeing to talk

Kevin Clash: No problem. I really liked your last post [about playing the Elmo card]. That doctor was great. He gave you some good pointers.

ES: Yeah, he was great. He's since become our pediatrician.

KC: Well, there you go! I would do that, after that information. We have a wonderful research department [at Children's Television Workshop], headed by Rosemarie Trulio. When I needed some pointers when my daughter Shannon was growing up, I asked her. It's great to have those people in your pocket when you have a child.

ES: Is your daughter into Elmo?

KC: She was—well, she still is. She's 15 now. Now, I come home and she has a stack of printed-out Elmo pictures that I have to sign for her friends. So now, it's a whole different thing.

ES: But when she was growing up, I'm sure, like every kid in America, she was Elmo-crazy.

KC: It was really cute. She went through phases. Ever since she was born, Elmo was in her life. I went to a lot of show-and-tells for a lot of classes.

ES: When she was young, was it clear to her that you played this character?

KC: She went through a little chanting thing when she was about three-and-a-half. She would say 'daddy-Elmo, Elmo-daddy, daddy-Elmo!' We were so glad when she got out of that phase. Like you were saying in your article, they'll test you. She knew that I was always with Elmo, but she never really saw it as me being a puppeteer, she just saw it as two people. Then she did this thing where we would be on the phone and she would say 'Hey daddy, can I speak to Elmo?' Then I would come on as Elmo and she would say, 'Hey Elmo, I saw this doll on a commercial. It's really cool. Can you tell my daddy about it?' Elmo'd say 'Yeah, ok.' Then she'd say 'Now put daddy back on.' And then she'd say, 'Now, daddy, Elmo has something really important to tell you.'

ES: That's great. I didn't know until after I posted that article that you had Baltimore roots, and that you got your start working at the Harbor.

KC: Baltimore was a great place to grow up. I used to do Sunny Sunday down at the Harbor, where my puppet stage almost got blown into the water. We had to rig it to the stage. I used to go down every Sunday. My father would drive me down and I would put up my little stage and do my thing.

ES: How old were you at that point?

KC: Please, early teens?

ES: You started so young!

KC: Well, Sesame Street started in 1969 and I was nine years old, so I was definitely into watching Sesame, but for two reasons. One, I loved the show, but I was also trying to look at how they built the puppets and stuff like that.

ES: What about puppeteering appealed to you so early?

KC: I really don't know. My mom sewed a lot, so she taught me how to sew on a Singer sewing machine, and my dad drew a lot and he was very artistic, so I think the combination appealed to me.

ES: So, I saw that you got back to Baltimore recently for Port Discovery's 10th anniversary party.

KC: Yeah, it was great be there for that. I love Baltimore. I'll give back to Baltimore whatever they want because the city really embraced me and showed me my roots. It gave me a really nice background to come up there. Even Jim [Henson] said that. He was very pleasantly surprised how much I knew, just from being down in Baltimore. It's very neighborhoody. The Harbor was right there—a lot of stuff for kids—the Science Center, the Aquarium, all that stuff. It's great.

ES: Since I found out you were from Baltimore, I've been trying to detect if Elmo has a Baltimore accent.

KC: [laughs] I don't know if it comes out, you would have to tell me. Maybe the laugh.

ES: Obviously Elmo has become one of the most popular children's characters of all time. What do you think it is about him that appeals to kids so much?

KC: I think it's the positiveness of him, they can really relate to that. The stage that Elmo is supposed to be at—two, three years old—is the same as a lot of the kids, where everything just blows you away and fascinates you. All you want to do is have a good time. And that's why the laugh is so important, because at that age, everything is positive. And if it's not, in a second it will be. That's why the young kids relate to him. And then he has that edge, that muppet edge that Jim [Henson] always wanted us to keep, where we bring ourselves and our sense of humor into it, and that's why it works for the adults too.

ES: Yeah! There are those great moments in there. I was just watching the one where Elmo wants to be a plant like Stinky the plant and he just gets so bored by being a plant—it's hysterical!

KC: Oh, yes, yes. I think that's what's so cool. Adults get so excited when they come on the set. I remember when Whoopi Goldberg came on the set, she said she knew she had finally made it.

ES: I imagine it's a special thing for a lot of celebrities who come on the show.

KC: Oh, yeah. Also, it's very different from their lives as movie stars, where there's a whole different situation with negotiating and top-billing. When you come to Sesame Street, there's none of that. They're just coming to have a good time.

ES: And they're so charming. You get to see a side of people that's so endearing.

KC: Oh, totally! And some times the movie starts do it for their kids, because they're usually in these movies that, 9 times out of 10, they can't see.

ES: I have a neighbor whose three-year-old dressed up like a cheese this year after seeing Ben Stiller's bit on Sesame Street.

KC: [laughs] Yes! Yes! That was so funny. Yeah, we got Adam Sandler coming in next to shoot something, so we're looking forward to that.

ES: How has Elmo's character changed over the years?

KC: When I started doing Elmo, everything was very primitive, Elmo do this, Elmo do that. And we saw that that got in the way of his teaching a little bit, so he got a full vocabulary at that point and that's the only thing that really changed about Elmo.

ES: Has the voice stayed the same?

KC: Oh yeah. When I created the character, I did that voice and they loved it, so it's been the same ever since. It's getting a little more challenging for me as I get older. I wake up in the morning and I sound like Barry White. Now, it's about warming up and doing the things I need to do. I don't drink anymore, I can't be around smoke, I have to drink water more, so you find ways of doing things to keep the voice where it needs to be.

ES: You have such a deep voice. It's not a strain for you?

KC: I do a lot of audio toys and I know that I have about three hours that I can do before the highs of the falsetto starts going away. That's my limit and then I have to stop for the day.

ES: What do kids say when they see you with Elmo?

KC: They say 'Can Elmo come home with me?' It's just the sweetest. Your heart just breaks because you want to say 'Sure, you guys go home and have a play date,' but you can't do that.

ES: But they can buy their own Elmo. My son Jack has an Elmo at home and one at preschool. One day I went to pick him up and he was running around dancing with Elmo. The only way I could get him to go home was to say, 'We can go home and play with Elmo!'

KC: [laughs] It's very interesting what the pediatrician said in your article. You let them have their tantrums. It's okay to bribe. It's not detrimental to your child. I loved when he said that the child is gonna tell you 'Go screw yourself.' That was so funny. That's a child. They don't dissect anything that they say or do. I remember when I was a child and I said 'Jeez, Grandma, you got some fat feet,' because the meat was rolling over the shoes at the top. And of course, my mom was looking at me like 'You're not supposed to say that!' Kids are the best.